Body returned, but too decomposed for viewing

I found this story on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's website.

Last August, Sgt. Paul Saylor died in Iraq after the vehicle he was in rolled over into a canal.  Two of his fellow soldiers also died in the accident.  

When Saylor's body arrived back in Georgia it was found that his remains were so badly decomposed that his grieving mother wasn't allowed to view them and the funeral was closed casket.

There's something wrong about this...

Sgt. Saylor died on August 15th of last year.  He was in a rollover accident while riding in a Humvee.  There was no explosion, and the bodies Saylor and his two comrades in arms were not disfigured at all.

The standard practice for dealing with the remains of dead soldiers is to pack them in ice for shipment back to Dover, Delaware where autopsies and embalming take place.  After that the bodies are shipped to wherever the family lives for the funeral.

Ice?

Think about that for a moment.  A soldier dies and they pack the body in ice in a country where temperatures in August regulary exceed 100 degrees.  Ice melts into water.  A corpse lying in water decomposes rapidly.

Bill Hightower, funeral director at Hightower Funeral Home in Bremen, said ice doesn’t cool bodies enough to preserve them well in extremely high temperatures. Hightower, who handled the Saylor funeral, said packing bodies in ice “is Third World country to me in the handling of our fallen soldiers.”

Hightower said he discussed the Saylor case with his father, who planned funerals for fallen soldiers from World War II, and his father was “disheartened” by the details.

Embalming machines cost $1,000 to $2,000, Hightower said. He added that as long as blood samples are taken, bodies can be embalmed without interfering with the ability to perform an autopsy and do DNA testing later.

Why doesn't the Pentagon supply embalming machines for use in Iraq?

Saylor wants to know how her son’s remains could have been in such poor condition just three days after he died. After months of asking questions and meeting with military officials, the Saylor family has launched an effort to get a mortuary facility set up in the Middle East so that fallen soldiers can be embalmed before they return to the United States.

The Saylor's have launched a website where you help:
http://www.soldiersplea.com/

You can read the entire story at the AJC here:
http://www.ajc.com/...